Good morning. There is plenty happening away from the index this morning.

Anthropic’s prospectus gives investors a closer look at the economics of a frontier AI lab. AMD is buying the people who could help it design the next generation of chips. And CarMax has delivered an earnings report that deserves attention even if you haven’t thought about used cars lately.

We also have a fresh Meta announcement, another Boeing setback, and two very different earnings setups in Micron and Nike.

First, here’s where Monday left us.

September 28 regular-session ETF price returns versus September 25; split-adjusted, excluding dividends. These are closing returns, not Tuesday premarket quotes or index levels.

Anthropic’s computing bill is bigger than its revenue

Kimberly White / Getty Images for TechCrunch · CC BY 2.0. 2023 file photo.

The most useful part of an IPO prospectus is usually the bit that spoils the sales pitch.

Reuters’ look at Anthropic’s documents puts 2025 revenue at roughly $4.6 billion, against $7.33 billion spent on compute and infrastructure. The company generated extraordinary growth, but supplying the computing power behind that growth was already more expensive than its entire revenue.

The approximately $42 billion net loss needs unpacking. Roughly $34 billion reflected an accounting charge associated largely with financing instruments. That is different from spending $42 billion in cash. The operating loss still exceeded $8 billion, so removing the accounting noise doesn’t turn this into a profitable business.

For Amazon and Alphabet shareholders, this is also a customer-financing story. Both are investors and cloud partners. Growing AI usage can support infrastructure revenue, while the customer still needs funding to meet its obligations.

A valuation above $2 trillion remains a reported possibility, not a completed offering price. Nor should we divide that prospective valuation by last year’s sales and pretend it describes today’s business.

The question for investors is how quickly revenue can grow relative to the infrastructure bill—and how much capital shareholders must supply along the way. Read the prospectus reporting.

AMD is buying a different kind of AI expertise

Lijiaxuan · CC0. 2024 file photo.

AMD’s $8.2 billion, all-stock agreement to acquire World Labs brings Fei-Fei Li and her research team inside the chipmaker. The deal was announced after Monday’s close and is expected to finish by year-end, subject to approvals.

World Labs develops models that understand and generate three-dimensional environments. That has applications in simulation and robotics, where a system needs to understand space and movement rather than simply produce text.

AMD’s argument is straightforward: understanding the models should help it build better hardware and software to run them. Fei-Fei Li would become executive vice president and chief scientist, reporting to Lisa Su.

Shareholders are paying for that potential with equity. An all-stock deal preserves cash, but issues ownership to the sellers. The eventual return depends on whether the research improves products that customers choose to buy.

There is no quantified near-term earnings benefit in the announcement. The first milestone is closing the transaction; the longer job is translating research into a stronger computing platform.

One timing detail matters: AMD’s 3.61% Monday decline preceded the announcement. It is not the market’s verdict on this deal. Read AMD’s terms and rationale.

CarMax sold more cars. Each one made a little less.

deathpallie325 · CC BY-SA 4.0. 2023 file photo.

CarMax’s new quarter is a useful reminder that lower profit per sale doesn’t necessarily mean lower profit for the business.

Revenue rose 19.5% to about $7.9 billion, while earnings reached $1.16 a share, versus $0.64 a year earlier. Retail vehicle volume increased 13.8%, but retail gross profit per vehicle fell $111 to $2,105.

The explanation sits elsewhere in the business. Auto-finance income increased 32.1%, and overhead per vehicle declined as sales volumes grew. CarMax also plans to resume share repurchases in its third fiscal quarter.

There is progress here, but it isn’t simply a story of shoppers accepting higher margins. Competitive pricing helped move inventory; financing and operating efficiency helped turn those sales into earnings.

On today’s 8 a.m. ET call, the useful follow-up is whether management sees that combination continuing. In particular, does expanding the lending business bring acceptable credit performance alongside higher income?

The next scheduled strategy update is November 3. For now, these results offer a more concrete account of the turnaround than a promise to cut costs. See the quarter’s operating breakdown.

THE STOCK BOARD

Where big tech finished

Monday, September 28 close · Prices in USD · Daily change

Mag 7 + AMD, Broadcom and Micron. C&C’s editorial watchlist.

Nvidia was the only gainer in this group. Its strength didn’t extend across the chip stocks, and the largest losses came from Meta and Tesla. Monday’s board is a good reason to look past the label “AI trade”: these companies have different customers, costs and announcements.

IN FOCUS · MDB

Meta hired MongoDB’s CEO. The stock lost 18%.

BrokenSegue · CC BY-SA 4.0. Palo Alto office, 2014 file photo.

Meta got a new executive. MongoDB shareholders got a rough Monday.

CJ Desai left MongoDB for a senior role at Meta, effective immediately. MongoDB brought back former CEO Dev Ittycheria on an interim basis while it searches for a permanent replacement. The company’s announcement.

Source: OpenMarket · view the chart. Hourly candles. Supplied September 29; the $334.69 premarket marker is separate from Monday’s $334.68 official close.

Shares closed at $334.68, down 18.46%, after trading as low as $300. The OpenMarket chart shows the sharp gap lower and the recovery from the session’s low. Even after that rebound, the shares finished $75.76 below Friday’s close.

The forecast hasn’t changed. MongoDB reaffirmed its third-quarter and full-year fiscal 2027 guidance. That makes the selloff particularly striking: investors marked down the shares despite management leaving its financial outlook intact.

Leadership uncertainty can matter well before it shows up in reported revenue. Investors now need to hear who owns the strategy, whether senior staff and customers stay confident, and how the permanent CEO search will work.

Today’s 11 a.m. ET investor day puts management in front of shareholders almost immediately. The useful answers will concern execution and continuity, rather than another broad pitch about AI demand.

AI & BUSINESS · META

Meta wants a place in the back office

Today’s Muse for Small Business announcement gives Meta’s enterprise ambitions something tangible.

The company is adding connections to tools including QuickBooks, Shopify, Slack and Stripe, alongside Facebook and Instagram business accounts. The pitch is an agent that can work across the systems a business already uses, with the owner giving it a goal rather than managing every step. See Meta’s launch details.

For shareholders, the opportunity goes beyond generating marketing copy. If an assistant becomes part of daily operations, it could give Meta another recurring relationship with businesses. But access to an account is not the same as permission to run the company. Reliability, controls and the cost of serving users will matter as usage grows.

AI & POLICY · NVDA

The AI argument moves to Washington

Coolcaesar; edit by Jacek Halicki · CC BY-SA 4.0. File photo.

President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson are expected to meet leading AI executives today, with oversight and the pace of development under discussion. A meeting is on the calendar; an agreement is not yet a fact. What is planned.

Nvidia’s response to the safety debate includes the Open Agent Safety Platform announced yesterday. OpenShell controls what an agent can access and do at runtime. Sentry adds a separate protection layer intended to isolate suspicious activity.

That is a proposed way to make deployments safer, not proof that unpredictable AI behavior has been eliminated. More than 100 organizations participating in the initiative also doesn’t mean 100 paying customers are already running it in production. Nvidia’s description of the system.

The business issue is practical. Companies buying autonomous software need confidence that it won’t create an expensive problem while completing a routine task. Better controls could support adoption; more demanding approval requirements could slow launches or raise costs.

For the listed suppliers, today’s useful developments would be specific requirements, implementation dates or procurement commitments. Broad statements about leadership tell us much less about next quarter’s revenue.

AROUND THE MARKET

A few stocks outside the AI conversation

Boeing

The FAA is delaying MAX 10 certification while a newly disclosed software issue is addressed. Boeing fell 6.91% Monday. The consequence to follow is delivery timing: a backlog generates cash only as aircraft can be completed and handed over. This is a MAX 10 certification setback, not a newly announced grounding of every MAX. Read the reporting.

Ford and GM

The final fuel-economy rollback gives automakers more flexibility over their vehicle mix. DOT projects a 34.9 mpg fleetwide average in 2031 under the new standards. That is a regulatory fleet calculation, not a requirement that every vehicle achieve that mileage. Lower compliance spending could help manufacturers; customers still have to live with the fuel bill. The final announcement.

Novo and Lilly

Novo is paying $300 million upfront for rights outside greater China to Hengrui’s early-stage, potentially weekly oral obesity treatment. Meanwhile, Lilly released a favorable indirect comparison of Foundayo against a higher-dose oral semaglutide regimen. These developments belong at different points on the research timeline. Novo is acquiring a candidate ready for Phase 1; Lilly’s comparison uses existing studies rather than a new randomized head-to-head trial. Neither headline establishes future market share. Novo’s agreement · Lilly’s study details.

EARNINGS AHEAD · MU / NKE

Micron tomorrow, Nike Thursday

Brandon Carson; crop by Another Believer · CC BY 2.0. Source crop.

WEDNESDAY · MICRON

June’s outlook called for quarterly revenue of $50 billion, plus or minus $1 billion, and gross margin of approximately 86%. Those are management’s previous forecasts, not results already reported. Last quarter’s adjusted free cash flow was $18.3 billion after $7.1 billion of net capital expenditure.

Tomorrow’s update should show whether demand and pricing delivered against that outlook—and how much additional investment is needed to keep supplying customers. High margins are valuable, but the duration of those margins helps determine what investors should pay for them. Micron’s previous results and guidance.

THURSDAY · NIKE

Its previous quarter produced $11 billion of revenue, down 1%, with direct sales down 7%. The reported 49.2% gross margin included roughly nine percentage points from expected tariff recoveries.

Thursday’s release needs a reading that separates those benefits from the underlying business. Wholesale growth, direct-channel demand and discounting will give a better picture of the recovery than an earnings figure helped by tariff accounting. Nike’s prior-quarter breakdown.

STREET CALLS

Upgrades, downgrades and target changes

Three relevant calls from Monday, rather than fresh Tuesday actions:

For Micron and Nike, the upcoming results give us a quick opportunity to compare those views with updated company numbers.

PREDICTION MARKETS

Prediction markets: another hike is the favored outcome

Kalshi’s October Fed market displayed approximately 70% for a quarter-point hike and 30% for no change in this morning’s check.

These are market-implied probabilities, not a Fed forecast. Separate contracts, spreads and rounding can produce totals above 100%; the page also displayed a small probability of a larger hike.

For stock investors, the connection is financing costs and the valuation of future earnings. The odds can shift as this week’s data arrives. Follow the October contract.

Observed September 29, approximately 6:28 a.m. ET.

MACRO IN A MINUTE

At 10 a.m., two more views of the consumer

August job openings and September consumer confidence are scheduled for 10 a.m. ET today. Openings describe employers’ demand for workers; confidence describes households’ perceptions. Neither is a substitute for actual spending.

For retailers, lenders and travel stocks, the useful combination is whether employment opportunities are holding up while consumers remain willing to make larger purchases. CarMax supplies company-level evidence; the broader releases can show whether that experience travels beyond one business. BLS schedule · Consumer confidence.

CRYPTO STOCKS

Crypto stocks, briefly

Coinbase fell 1.70% Monday, while Strategy lost 0.93%. These are regular-session stock returns. They offer different exposures: exchange activity and fees for Coinbase, versus bitcoin holdings and financing decisions for Strategy. Neither return should be presented as bitcoin’s overnight move.

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